PANAMA CITY, Fla. (NNS) -- Following feedback from the fleet regarding the need for course updates, the Center for Explosive Ordnance and Diving (CENEODDIVE) in Panama City announced Feb. 25 the availability of the Navy Diver Salvage Course (NDSC) on Navy e-Learning.

Previously available as one 'master' course, the NDSC has been broken into four individual course modules: Navy Diver Salvage Fundamentals, Naval Architecture, Operations, and Scenarios. Diving Advisory 14-02 announced the promulgation of the new course and transition date for personnel enrolled in the previous version. Completion of the NDSC course is a prerequisite for Master Diver evaluation and for Diving Warrant Officer applicants.

According to CENEODDIVE Learning Standards Officer Melanie Hinson, this course redesign enables Sailors to complete their online training in more manageable modules, and also provides just-in-time training for Sailors who may need refresher training on specific salvage topics. The previous edition was one long course that contained 92 hours of training.

"The new modularized training empowers the learner to focus on related topics which result in greater understanding of the material and enhanced comprehension," said Hinson. "A primary emphasis of the revision dealt with making the mathematical computations easier to follow through the use of in-depth, step-by-step examples that provide a crawl, walk, run approach to the learning experience for our Sailors."

The NDSC Scenarios course module, while ungraded, provides a look at different types of actual salvage projects and illustrates how the information in the other three course modules applies to real-world salvage operations.

"Course update project tasks were accomplished by Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who performed this review and course upgrade in addition to their normal duties," said CENEODDIVE Master Chief Navy Diver William Hargaray. "Using SMEs current with down-range operations allowed the course fundamentals, graphics, training sequence, math calculations, assessments, and references to align with the needs of the fleet."

Capt. James Beene, commanding officer of CENEODDIVE noted that the updated courses are more than just a periodic review. "These new courses have not only been dissected into logical, manageable sections, but they also represent the current state of the art in salvage technology and operations," said Beene. "Combined with direct internet access availability on Navy e-Learning, these updates represent an exponential improvement in our courses."

Users may access the new Navy Diver Salvage Courses using the direct NeL link of https://www.aas.prod.nel.training.navy.mil. This link will take you directly to the 'My Learning' and 'Course Catalog' tabs of the NeL learning management system after login.